Rewire is excited to announce its context programme revolving around the theme of Inter/relations, taking place at Amare, The Grey Space in The Middle, Nieuwe Kerk, and Page Not Found from 6 to 9 April. Situated around its music and performance line-up, Rewire’s context programme aims to provide a space for reflection and to bring the various practices of artists into conversation with one another. Through conversations, listening sessions and assemblies, the programme will tune into entangled environments and sound technologies, while challenging existing borders and linear notions of time.
The festival’s context programme Inter/relations will explore how recognizing fluid boundaries between humans, ‘nature’, and technology, and establishing connections between times and territories are fundamental for contemporary and experimental music and sound practices. Musicians and sound artists experiment with emerging and older technologies, exploring ways to tune into and expose the often invisible yet pervasive systems and networks of contemporary society. They find ways to improvise and collaborate across different time zones. Some approach the technologies they use critically, assessing forms of extraction and the ways in which natural landscapes or communities are exploited. Other artists are interested in the genealogy of instruments – the ways in which music and sound cultures travel – or in developing new contexts for forgotten or pre-colonial instruments. They invite us to listen more closely and collectively, and to recalibrate our relations with our environment.
The first part of the context programme Instrumental Ecologies focuses on the ever-shifting role of technology in music and sound practice, and how artists and musicians research and experiment with the ways in which instruments and technologies are entangled with natural ecologies. It also asks how older, analogue, or low-tech tools and instruments are revisited and used in experimental music. The second part will look into interrelations between Times and Territories, challenging existing borders and linear notions of time. During conversations, listening sessions, and assemblies taking place at Amare, The Grey Space in The Middle, Nieuwe Kerk, and Page Not Found, we will practice forms of intergenerational listening, while engaging with music and sound from various locations and positions.
The context programme features contributions by: Brandon LaBelle, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Carla J. Maier, Ellen Fullman, Giada Dalla Bontà, Hatis Noit, Hannes Liechti, Heloisa Amaral, Hildegard Westerkamp (audio contribution), Joe Rainey, Liew Niyomkarn, Lucy Liyou, Maria Chávez, Mariam Rezaei, Mark Peter Wright, Matthew Biederman, meLê yamomo, Naomi Rincón Gallardo, Nwando Ebizie, Pak Yan Lau, Pamela Z, Paul Purgas, Pierce Warnecke, Patti Smith and Soundwalk Collective, Stas Sharifullin, Vica Pacheco, Victoria Shen, Vivian Caccuri and more artists to be announced.
Collaborations
Prior and during the opening programme on 6 April, students from Composition, ArtScience and Sonology at the University of the Arts The Hague will launch a special Rewire edition of the CASS concert in and around the New Music Lab at Amare, under the theme of Uncovering invisible systems. From Thursday onwards, The Grey Space in The Middle, space for fundamental creativity, and Page Not Found, space for artist’s publications, will operate as the main centers of gravity for Rewire’s context programme. Rewire is collaborating with Radio WORM, who will be broadcasting live from The Grey Space, with interviews, live streams and conversations, reflecting and reporting over the course of the festival days. Record store 3345 and book store Underbelly will also open their pop-up shops at The Grey Space again. Finally, together with reflection partner Norient, Rewire will publish an Online Special on 15 March, with essays and audio contributions by authors from the Norient and Rewire network around the theme of Inter/relations.
The entire context programme is freely accessible. For the opening programme on Thursday 6 April, please reserve a free ticket here.
Leading up to the festival, a series of essays, interviews, audio contributions, and works of sonic fiction will be published on the Rewire website and in collaboration with Norient. Read and listen to the first essay “An Equal Sound” by Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, and an introduction to “The Soundscape Speaks” by Hildegard Westerkamp.
Rewire Reflections open call
Rewire invites aspiring and early-career critics, writers, and researchers to contribute to the Rewire Reflections series of essays, interviews, and short reflections that will be published in the weeks following the festival. Participants are given the opportunity to interview artists and speakers or to reflect upon the festival’s music, context and film programme, and to come together for a session on writing about listening prior to the opening programme on 6 April. Read more on how to apply here.